Audio Video News

It's been a big week for digital music. First Apple finally rolled out iTunes Match, the final link in its chain of cloud services, allowing users to get anytime, anywhere access to all those songs they ripped from CDs over the years or acquired by, uh, let's say "other means." Then on Wednesday Google unveiled Google Music, its fully armed and operational online music store.

Music industry executives have been discussing the possibility with Apple, reports the news network. If the plan moves forward, it would allow consumers to buy music files encoded at 24-bit resolution, as opposed to the 16 bits used for CDs and compressed files.

Interactive TV (iTV) is about to become a reality, according to a new study released by <A HREF="http://www.StrategisGroup.com">The Strategis Group</A>. The study, "Interactive TV: Platforms, Content, and Services," projects that, by 2005, the majority of US households will be iTV-capable, and that active usage will reach over 41 million&mdash;a dramatic rise from the 1 million households using the service this year.

Toshiba will no longer develop and sell TVs in North America as part of a restructuring and will license the TV business to Taiwan’s Compal Electronics. According to a press release issued in Tokyo, Compal will begin delivering Toshiba brand TVs to the North American market in March.